Jamshied Sharifi ’85 Wins Tony Award for The Band’s Visit

Berklee alumnus and former faculty member Jamshied Sharifi '85 won his first Tony Award on Sunday night for orchestrating the musical The Band’s Visit. This is the third consecutive year a Berklee alumnus has won in the Best Orchestrations category: Alex Lacamoire B.M. '95 won the award for the past two years for the musicals Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen. Sharifi studied film scoring, jazz piano, and composition at the college. He also taught in the Electronic Production and Design and Ensembles departments between 1988 and 1992 before moving to New York.

The Band’s Visit, which won 10 Tonys in total, including Best Musical, stars Boston Conservatory at Berklee alumna Rachel Prather (B.F.A. '12, musical theater) as Julia; she will take home a statue as a member of the company. Tony-winning producers Ben Simpson (B.F.A. ’11, musical theater) and Joe Longthorne (B.F.A. ‘12, musical theater), both Conservatory alumni, produced the musical with FVSL Theatricals. Berklee alumni Brian Lee B.M. '14 and Dayna Bloom B.M. '14 produced the revival of Angels in America, which won the Tony for Best Revival of a Play. 

A number of College and Conservatory alumni contributed to many of the year’s Tony-nominated shows, including Frozen (Stephen Oremus B.M. ’92, musical supervisor; Austin Lesch B.F.A. ‘04, musical theater), My Fair Lady (Liz McCartney G.P.D. ’88, musical theater; Matt Wall B.F.A. ’95, musical theater), and Junk (Stephanie Umoh B.F.A. ’08, musical theater).